I Want Candy

Abbie is learning lots of new signs now. She knows fish (puts hands together and swings side to side), baby (puts hands together and swings side to side), and swing (puts hands to side and swing).

So what if all of her new signs look the same? Usually I can figure out the sign by context. The worst of her confusion is with candy. For that sign, you point your index finger to your cheek and rotate your hand a few times. That’s not to be confused with the sign for apple where you point your thumb to your cheek and rotate your hand a few times. For Abbie, everything she wants to eat is candy. When she actually wants candy, that’s good. For sweet things, that makes sense. We thought it was cute when she made the candy sign to eat more pancakes. She noticed that the syrup was sweet. It became a little less cute when she made the sign for something like sausage, which although tasty, is definitely not sweet.

Adding to the confusion, she makes almost the same sign for sing. Sing is supposed to be a pointed index finger spiraling outward from the mouth, but she doesn’t have the physical skills for that one yet, so she uses the same sign for candy. Usually I can figure that one out from context, but strangers have a hard time interpreting her. Whenever Abbie points to her mouth, my mother doesn’t know whether to grab the fruit snacks or the stereo remote. Hopefully she’ll start vocalizing more, or we’ll never know when she wants to say “baby fish,” or heaven help us “baby fish swing.”